Gavagai climbs the chaos ladder

[Mjmd]

I wonder if it has to do with caste somehow. I remember PB66 when I was trying to caste & pacifism my cereal mills merchant I calculated my % to get a great spy instead of merchant at 9.6%, but then the interface showed 20%. Cornflakes was unsure at the time what caused it, but since I got the merchant I never asked.

[Gavagai]

Thanks, guys! I need to say, even though Ref's initial idea was obviously incorrect literally, there must be some grain of truth to it because I noticed that if you have a GP pool polluted with wonders it is much harder to influence the type of GP by running mass specialists than you would expect. Ref's suggestion that wonders essentially count as specialists for the purpose of GP-type determination would explain it. Could it be that it is just National Wonders become different?
Of course, none of it explains the mystery of extra prophet points but this might be some sort of a rare bug.
A couple more random things, as I am here.
1) Observe the irony of unintended consequences of Pindicator's decision-making. He did not want to give me OB (even though I am pretty sure he would benefit more from trade than I would) because I am assuming "me doesn't want help the leader". It is possible that their defensive pact serves the same purpose (although this could be my egocentric bias at work - I can totally see the purpose of this arrangement being enforcing peace between Pindi and Mig). Well, the actual effect now is that it is now easier for me to deal with Commodore because I have nothing to lose from the war with Pindicator and can freely DOW him if I ever want to trigger a war with Commodore.
2) Do lurkers want some sort of domestic development / state of empire update? I meant to do something like that for a while but there is always some security threat taking priority in reporting. Besides, I would feel silly for saying "look at my pretty island colonies" if said colonies are turned into ruins next turn. But if there is demand for such a thing, it would be an incentive for me to push up its priority.
3) Generally, do you want to see anything else game-related I've been ignoring/neglecting in my reports?

[RefSteel]

Wellll ... I did a bit more testing, and found that what I wrote is partly correct: The influence that specialists and buildings have over which type of GP will eventually spawn is proportional to the number of turns they're present and their base GPP production, but this is not modified by GPP multipliers. (Note that neither GPP nor GP type influence are added during anarchy or revolt.) So going back to my previous example, the correct numbers would be:

If your city has had Moai + Mids for the 48 turns since generating its last GP, and you then start a Golden Age, revolt to Pacifism, and run 7 scientists for 8 turns, you'll have 72 GPP from Moai, 144 GPP from Mids, and 504 GPP from the Scientists, but the chances of each GP type will have a totally different ratio: 56 Moai-turns yields 56 (56 turns x 1/turn) "points" of prophet influence; 56 Mids-turns yields 112 (56 turns x 2/turn) "points" of Engineer influence; 56 Specialist-turns yields 168 (8 turns x 7 specs x 3/turn) "points" of Scientist influence. Thus the chance of getting a Scientist would be just 50% (168 / (168 + 112 + 56)) instead of the ~61% you'd expect from GPPs (504 / (504 + 144 + 72)).

That may (help to) explain why your Merchant percentage is low since most of your merchants were hired during a GA, but not why your prophet chances are so high in comparison with Scientist chances (which seem to be in line with Artist chances at least). All I can think of is that some random event may have done something (I don't even know what it would be - gave you a free priest spec that then somehow expired?) or that there's indeed some kind of bug whose source and nature I couldn't guess.

2) Do lurkers want some sort of domestic development / state of empire update?

This lurker, at least, thinks that would be pretty cool!

[Krill]

Maybe the free specialists from the GL don't contribute to the percentage chance and just count as gpp?

[RefSteel]

Maybe the free specialists from the GL don't contribute to the percentage chance and just count as gpp?

Well, there wouldn't have been any GLib specialists since SciMeth was already in, but GLib itself should have provided as many GS points as Stonehenge provided GP points (and the NE should have provided half that many GA points - as indeed it provided about half of GLib's GS points). And it can't be a matter of obsolescence itself because Astro was finished to obsolete Stonehenge for even longer!

[Gavagai]

Wellll ... I did a bit more testing, and found that what I wrote is partly correct:  The influence that specialists and buildings have over which type of GP will eventually spawn is proportional to the number of turns they're present and their base GPP production, but this is not modified by GPP multipliers.  (Note that neither GPP nor GP type influence are added during anarchy or revolt.)  So going back to my previous example, the correct numbers would be:

If your city has had Moai + Mids for the 48 turns since generating its last GP, and you then start a Golden Age, revolt to Pacifism, and run 7 scientists for 8 turns, you'll have 72 GPP from Moai, 144 GPP from Mids, and 504 GPP from the Scientists, but the chances of each GP type will have a totally different ratio:  56 Moai-turns yields 56 (56 turns x 1/turn) "points" of prophet influence; 56 Mids-turns yields 112 (56 turns x 2/turn) "points" of Engineer influence; 56 Specialist-turns yields 168 (8 turns x 7 specs x 3/turn) "points" of Scientist influence.  Thus the chance of getting a Scientist would be just 50% (168 / (168 + 112 + 56)) instead of the ~61% you'd expect from GPPs (504 / (504 + 144 + 72)). 

That may (help to) explain why your Merchant percentage is low since most of your merchants were hired during a GA, but not why your prophet chances are so high in comparison with Scientist chances (which seem to be in line with Artist chances at least).  All I can think of is that some random event may have done something (I don't even know what it would be - gave you a free priest spec that then somehow expired?) or that there's indeed some kind of bug whose source and nature I couldn't guess.

2) Do lurkers want some sort of domestic development / state of empire update?

This lurker, at least, thinks that would be pretty cool!

Thanks Ref. As always, it was very informative. Domestic update will sadly have to wait, though - I am pretty sure a dogpile has been coordinated against me. More to follow.

[Gavagai]

So, I spotted this small fleet by Mig which has no good reason to exist at this spot. Combined with many other signs of belligerent activity on his part, it convinced me that Mig is going to attack. I sent him diplo offers in which, essentially, demanded him to make a choice: peace or war. In a few hours real-time, after I published my previous update, I received from him the following message:

Dear Gavagai,
seeing as you're out of wars recently I've decided to step in.
You go first in order, happy slaughters.
Best wishes
Mig

I responded as follows:

Filthy dog! You will pay with the blood of your subjects for your sudden but inevitable betrayal. Be you devoured by a million of insects! Your meat will be my food, your skin will be my clothes, your skull will be my trophy. Prepare to die!!!

It was in jest, of course, but also reflects my frustration. First of all, I really hate it when people try to be clever in war declaration messages. Chances are high that your opponent will be in no laughing mood when he receives it so better keep it brief and formal.
But more generally - am I the only one who thinks that the plotline of this game has been really weird? Twenty turns ago me and Commodore were two equal rival superpowers: all our main indicators were essentially equal. The war between us has just ended in a stalemate - we both had the same territory as before so nothing really changed right? Well, could I expect that Commodore would just inexplicably self-destruct after that. Now, I am suddenly a frontrunner, hated by everyone (including the lurkers). Well, it happened through no fault of my own, ok? Go blame Commodore for throwing his position away. I am not even particularly motivated to play anymore, despite my winning position, because the game was turned into a clownshow.
Anyway, that's enough of this. The turn has not yet rolled so I do not know what happened but from the looks of it I can just ignore Commodore and send everything to crush Mig, right? Commodore's Bandits barely moved (travelling at the speed of Galleons, remember?), I think if they were carrying any serious force, he would use it by now (btw, Commodore DID NOT send me a war message even though he played after Mig, so he must have known he went in; it could be he decided not to bother though). So I break Mig and win, right? This is the plan for now.
By the way:

Even Pindicator is joining in.
One last thing - even if everything goes to shit (which I don't believe is likely), I will make sure Mig will not win this. So, this is the reason, I believe superpower wars in late game are stupid (unless you believe you can outright force concession) and decided not to go after Mig proactively, though I contemplated it. You cannot eliminate a true superpower and even diminished it will just sit there and hate you until the end of the game. And do stupid things like dropping ICBMs on your head every 5-10 turns. I spared Mig before because I did not want to deal with this kind of bullshit in my own late game, so it would be only fair if Mig will be saddled with this, right?

[RefSteel]

Now, I am suddenly a frontrunner, hated by everyone (including the lurkers).

What gave you that impression? The mixed (and ... uh ... sparse) response to your question about logins? I havent noticed any particular lurker anger directed at you, for what it's worth.

Also: I tested caste system, obsolete wonders, 1000-year-culture-doubled-wonders, and large quantities of overflow from a previous Great Person. (The latter just ends up as "neutral" GPP with later contributions from builldings and specialists deciding the percentages.) None of it seems to have an impact on the GP-type-to-be. The extra prophet points in IngSoc remain a mystery. I note that those numbers would be approximately right if your Stonehenge were somehow influencing the numbers as though it had 3 base GPP instead of 2, or if there were somehow an invisible Moai Statues in the city or something - that is, the percentages would fit if you were getting exactly 1 extra "point" of Prophet influence per turn since the last Great Person birthed in the city - but that's approximate and may be a coincidence; it would also apply if a priest specialist magically appeared for a few turns, or if the game was treating some of your Merchants as Priests at some point. (I didn't test Caste system as extensively as I might have; since I'm grasping at straws here anyway, maybe there's some kind of table overflow bug where the Nth merchant is treated as a priest for GP-type purposes or something.)

Good luck defeating the latest dogpile - and I hope you do manage to find fun in it again!

[Gavagai]

Now, I am suddenly a frontrunner, hated by everyone (including the lurkers).

What gave you that impression?  The mixed (and ... uh ... sparse) response to your question about logins?  I havent noticed any particular lurker anger directed at you, for what it's worth.

Also:  I tested caste system, obsolete wonders, 1000-year-culture-doubled-wonders, and large quantities of overflow from a previous Great Person.  (The latter just ends up as "neutral" GPP with later contributions from builldings and specialists deciding the percentages.)  None of it seems to have an impact on the GP-type-to-be.  The extra prophet points in IngSoc remain a mystery.  I note that those numbers would be approximately right if your Stonehenge were somehow influencing the numbers as though it had 3 base GPP instead of 2, or if there were somehow an invisible Moai Statues in the city or something - that is, the percentages would fit if you were getting exactly 1 extra "point" of Prophet influence per turn since the last Great Person birthed in the city - but that's approximate and may be a coincidence; it would also apply if a priest specialist magically appeared for a few turns, or if the game was treating some of your Merchants as Priests at some point.  (I didn't test Caste system as extensively as I might have; since I'm grasping at straws here anyway, maybe there's some kind of table overflow bug where the Nth merchant is treated as a priest for GP-type purposes or something.)

Good luck defeating the latest dogpile - and I hope you do manage to find fun in it again!

Thanks Ref. The "hatred by the lurkers" referred to an earlier Amica's comment that no one is rooting for a frontrunner. It was meant as a joke but I understand the humor could be lost when inside an otherwise whiny post.

[Gavagai]

When I opened save, I discovered all three of them DOWed. So, Commodore just decided not to bother with PM. Played part of my turn, so far things look good. Bandit 1 went on a sidequest of capturing my island city in the far east, so it is out of consideration so far. Bandit 2 dropped most of its units on the big island in the south (cavs, cannons and rifles) where they promptly died (I believe their mission was to distract my units from defending from Bandit3 but costly distraction and I can reinforce). Bandit3 I wiped out except for its wooden component. Sadly, cannot reach the six galleons shielded under 20 Frigates this turn and will not bother next turn because I will need these ships in the north. I am pretty sure these Galleons do not carry anything valuable.
Mig seems to mount a two-prong attack, one aimed at Greenline's territory (lol if true) and another - my Western coast (I think). This last one is the only one which threatens a really important city (well, Mig's northern fleet can technically snipe Ingsoc but I can have it covered with no trouble).
Overall, this dogpile is pathetic. They brought very few transports and even what they brought is attacking irrelevant targets I'll happily trade for time. The plan is as I outlined before - ignore whatever Commodore is doing and go after Mig.